New Music Choral Ensemble
Neuma, 2020
8/10
Listen to New Music Choral Ensemble
A profoundly talented man, Kenneth Gaburo was an educator, pianist, author, ecologist and a pioneer in the area of electronics in music. Way back in 1967, he assembled 16 singers in Urbana, Illinois, and here his inimitable vision is documented with the New Music Choral Ensemble,
A Ben Johnston composition starts the listen with the vocally soaring “Ci-Git-Satie”, where a nearly operatic approach unfolds with gorgeous, harmonizing backing vocals as strategic drumming complements the 31 tones present, and “Sound Patterns”, by Pauline Oliveros, follows with playful, experimental ideas where yelping mixes with electronic flashes.
Elsewhere, “The Wasting Of Lucrecetzia” displays a fury of blurry screeching noises amid manipulated vocals, while Robert Shallenberg’s “Lilacs” is nothing short of sublime beauty in its soft and dreamy execution.
On the back half, “Luigi Nono” is a particularly expressive 7 minutes of dual gender vocals interacting with emotive ideas, and Oliver Messiaen’s “Cinq Rechants” exits the listen with bouts of swift, fuller moments that divide up the primarily intimate and inviting landscape.
With so many advances in music occurring around them in the ‘60s, Gaburo and company were determined to keep choral music alive, and the fact that there’s a captive audience ready to listen to this album 50+ years after it was recorded tells us that they were certainly onto something.
Travels well with: Robert Moran- Points Of Departure; Harmony Of Dissonance- Traces Of Croatian Traditional Singing